Category: In the Media

Settlers attack a school in northern West Bank

09 May 2011 | Palestine News Network

A group of Israeli settlers attacked on Monday morning a Palestinian school in the southern part of Nablus, northern West Bank.

Witnesses told local media that the settlers smashed windows and put-up a banner and wrote slogans on the outer wall of the school calling for the killing of Arabs.

Israeli soldiers were providing protection for the settlers and did not do anything to stop the attack in the school, the Palestinian Education Ministry announced on Monday.

According residents the school had to shut down today fearing that settlers will attack students, adding that such attacks on the school are committed under the protection of the military

Israeli troops arrest four civilians during morning invasions targeting West Bank communities

09 May 2011 | Palestine News Network

Israeli troops arresting a Palestinian man (PNN)
Four Palestinian civilians were arrested by Israeli soldiers, three from the same family, during morning invasions targeting West Bank communities.

In Beit Sahour, a town in southern West Bank near Bethlehem, soldiers stormed and searched the house of Assi Kassis arrested his wife and mother in addition to him.

Kassis, who works as a construction worker in Israel, went on Sunday to Kifar Atzion military camp to try to renew his army permission to enter Jerusalem.

On Monday at around 2:00 am soldiers stormed his house searched it then searched his brothers’ homes before arresting his Wife Marteen, 35 years old and his mother Rose, 60 years old, witnesses told PNN.

Family members said that soldiers gave no reason for arrest of the family and did not say where they are being held.

Also on Monday in southern West Bank, Israeli soldiers invaded parts of Hebron city and nearby villages. Troops left after arresting Isma’el Jaafra, from Traqumiya village near Hebron.

Bedouin hamlet destroyed for 3rd time

5 May 2011 | Maan News

Women of the Bedouin herding hamlet of Khirbet Amniyr sat on the earth and watched Israeli forces demolish their 12 tent homes for the third time on Thursday morning. The women said they were waiting for the soldiers to leave so they could rebuild their tent homes and once again re-establish their lives and livlihoods.

Amniyr, south of Yatta in the southern West Bank, is said to be located in an Israeli military zone. Military zoning laws enforced by Israel’s Civil Administration, make up part of the 60 percent of the West Bank that is inaccessible to Palestinians.

As the troops left, the woman remained seated, surveying the destruction, as their tents and mattresses lay buried under a thin layer of dirt.

“I appeal to God to save us from the cruelty of the Israeli occupation,” said the hamlet’s matriarch, as she stood and began to collect her belongings from under the dust.

The hamlet has been taken down twice before, first on February 22 when the Israeli military buried homes and water wells, later preventing ICRC workers from delivering aid equipment. On March 29, seven Bedouin were beaten by Israeli border police when the same 12 tents were taken down a second time.

The 12 families of Khirbet Amniyr were ordered out of their tent homes earlier in the year, but remained, saying they had little choice but to stay and had nowhere else to go.

The spokesman of Israel’s Civil Administration could not be reached by phone for comment on the latest demolition.

Amniyr is one of three Bedouin hamlets currently under Israeli evacuation orders, with a second in the south Hebron hills area, and a third in the northern West Bank district of Nablus which has been demolished six times. In Israel’s Negev region, the Bedouin community in Al-Araqib have seen their homes taken down a total of 16 times, to make way for a park.

Palestinian women smuggled into Israel for 6th time

4 May 2011 | Palestinian Solidarity Project

Earlier this week, a group of 12 Israeli women smuggled 8 Palestinian women and 4 children into Israel, in defiance of Israeli law. The trip was an act of civil disobedience intended to spark debate about Israel’s system of segregation that denies Palestinians access to most of historic Palestine. This was the 6th trip the group has organized in the past year.

The group assembled in the West Bank, split into several cars, and drove to Jaffa. All vehicles passed through the Israeli checkpoints unhindered. The group enjoyed a pleasant afternoon along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea and in a nearby park before returning home. In the past 9 months over 100 women have been smuggled into Israel in this fashion, defying Israel’s discriminatory checkpoint system that allows Israelis to travel freely throughout almost all of historical Palestine, while denying Palestinians this same right.

All of the women engaging in this act civil disobedience risk jail time if caught. In the spring of 2010 the Legal Forum for the Land of Israel filed a complaint demanding that the attorney general prosecute the woman for smuggling illegal residents into Israel. To date no charges have been filed.

Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike

4 May 2011 | PressTV

Palestinian political prisoners in Israel’s Nafha jail have gone on a hunger strike to protest the inhumane treatment of detainees by the Israeli prison administration.

Hundreds of Palestinian inmates held in the Israeli military detention center in northern West Bank took part in the one-day event on Tuesday, said Rafat Hamduna, director of the Palestinian Prisoners Study Center. The hunger strike came after Israeli guards, led by military officer Shimon Martislio, orchestrated humiliating raids and searches at the detention cells last week, the Palestine News Network reported. Hamduna warned that the hunger strike would spread to more Israeli jails if the inmates’ very basic rights are not met.

The Prisoners Study Center also called on the Red Cross and other local and international human rights groups to help put a stop to the suffering of Palestinian political prisoners held in Israeli jails. The Israeli prison administration is accused of using the policy of humiliation, pressure and punishment under the guise of security in its jails. Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli detention camps are continuously subject to lengthy solitary confinements, sudden night raids and torture. The Israeli prison administration also deprives Palestinian political detainees of the simple right of bathing, access to clean clothes and family visits.

The hunger strike is one of the few methods of nonviolent resistance available to Palestinian prisoners in jails. The protesters in Nafha are also taking action against the poor quality of food and the lack of medical attention. Israeli prisons have been facing such criticism for years. The situation is nothing new, except that it is worsening, according to human rights organizations.

Some 11,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees, including women and children, are currently held in Israeli jails. Many of them are held without charges, leaving several families with no breadwinner.